Immortal Memory (Iris' Atlantis 1)

25: Shards of Black Glass

I wondered what was behind all this.

Until this night my suspicions of a murder had been nothing but speculations. Now however...

Why, it was all but obvious that Hellebore was behind the murder of the male incarnation. I could chase Aconite all I wanted, but the case still rested with the Alchemist.

I had thought it could have maybe been a witch. The elders had always felt worried about some of my plans and they disliked my abilities to affect the fae. So I had thought that maybe the old Fern would have meddled. As it seemed that Aconite, the witch town's assassin, had killed me, it could have been the circle of Elders that was behind it.

I considered my own reflection in the dark glass of the window.

I had thought Hellebore was a friend. One of the few true friends I could have. Even with the vampires the situation was complicated, as part of my magic affected them, whether I wanted so or not. All fae felt inclined to please me. It was part of how we were. It had been part of my Futile Desire, to be loved by all fae.

And so I knew that Timothy was made of magic these days as well. He was fae, without a body of flesh. Otherwise he probably wouldn't have told me all that he had. He would have thought first of how it would affect his friends. But he liked me, despite the fact that in essence I had eaten up his human friend Lavender.

That was kind of troubling. It had been nearly 500 years since a new type of fae had been born in Atlantis...

I frowned. Or had it been exactly 500 years?

I wasn't sure. I hadn't really committed to memory the day when Hellebore had come to me, dragged me to his little laboratory and shown me the place where Mo had been changed. Her shackles had been torn open, and there hadn't been a sign of the curious Chinese girl. She had become immortal that night. We hadn't seen her for some decades.

But then Blizzard had come to us. Blizzard, with his red eyes and and tall frame. And it had been Blizzard who had explained to us what Mo had become. And it had been Blizzard's appearance that had made it finally clear: Mo was fae. She could create beings like herself.

All fae were made of magic essentially. And all fae reproduced. There were many elves, many seafolk and many vampires. These non-human entities that didn't eat like humans, didn't breathe like humans and weren't dependent on light and warmth like humans. And yet could look like humans.

So. I knew of Timothy something he didn't know himself. Timothy wouldn't be the last one of his kind. Whatever he was.

It was a short walk from the metro station to my home. It was a crisp spring night. I could see the stars, even through all the illumination from the streetlamps that lined the street I walked. A thin layer of fragile ice had formed over branches and the yellow lamplight made them glitter in the dark night.

Very beautiful in its own right.

I walked alone the empty street. Most windows I saw were dark. And the night was so cold an absolute silence reigned in the absence of bird songs.

Well. As absolute a silence as you got in a city like Breasinghae. I could still hear the nearest bigger road. It was impossible to escape the sound of a motorway inside the city, even when I lived far from the heart of the capital.

I turned the key to our front door as silently and calmly as I could. But as I opened the door and light spilled to the hallway, it became obvious that Lavender's boyfriend, Dew, wasn't asleep yet.

I closed the door behind me and took off my jacket. I laid Hellbore's calling card on a small table.

And had almost gotten both of the sneakers off as well when Dew appeared, framed by the livingroom doorway. He regarded me silently as I crouched to untie my left shoe that wouldn't come free of my foot by kicking. He let me straighten up again before he spoke:

"This cannot continue."

I eyed him in silence. He meant off course that it couldn't continue that his girlfriend came home near the witching hour on most days of the week.

Yet, he didn't say it worriedly. He said it with anger marking his tone. Dew had crossed his arms over his chest. He was looking down on me and demanding, as his right, an explanation. He hadn't asked where I had been, or if his girlfriend was in trouble.

This cannot continue, was a very different kind of conversation starter. It held power in it. It meant I was doing something he disliked. And he demanded that we talk, and then I stop.

It started with the assumption that he had the right to know where I was and what I was doing. It started with the assumption that he was only reasonable, and I was being frivolous.

A coldness settled in my stomach.

For a moment I cast my gaze aside. The Lavender in me cared for this human deeply. I wanted to please him. I wanted to hug him and stay here.

And he got no idea what it was I was doing, where I was going, or why. And he would never find out, without his memory. And Dew was one of the millions living in Atlantis who wouldn't naturally ever gain the magical memory.

I sighed a breath out.

Yes. I wanted Dew to remember. I wanted to force him to remember.

Like he wanted to make me stop being who I was. He wanted back his little, sweet, and very ordinary Lavender with no obvious secrets.

Aconite had come far in creating a medicine that would force people to remember magic. But it didn't seem it would be completed in many decades yet.

If Aconite would continue developing it. 

There was my murder to consider. Aconite had decided to kill me already once.

I lifted a hand to a temple. And tried to concentrate on Dew before me. Here in the narrow corridor between the front door and the living room.

"And don't you dare excuse yourself with the dizziness. We are going to talk. This cannot continue. It isn't fair to me that you just start spending time out in the middle of the night with these new friends of yours."

What did I want to do with this human in the current time? Did I want to keep him, as my boyfriend and human shield, while I investigated my own murder.

Or would it be easier for the both of us if I now responded to anger with anger, hurt him here, and went to sleep in the Castle?

Was it possible Mo was part of Hellebore's plot? Did she know he had ordered my execution twenty one years ago? Surely the Castle was out of limits. But maybe...

"Talk to me Lavender!"

Dew had come close. I looked into his eyes and felt overwhelmed. I had to stay. Had to be Lavender. At least until I knew more of who threatened me and why.

And I didn't want to hurt Dew unnecessarily. I remembered still far too vividly how in love with him Lavender had been. I would remember him. As I remembered all my husbands and wifes, lovers and mistresses over all the decades.

I said the very only thing I could:

"I love you."

I meant it.

But it wasn't enough.

I withstood the storm. I got emotional during it. We hurt, both of us. Neither one finding the truths the other would have wanted to hear. My secret wasn't one I could share with him, and his self-righteous anger could not be pacified.

But we still slept in the same bed that night.

Dew started snoring almost at the same instant his head hit the pillow. But I stayed long looking at the plastered white ceiling. Thinking of my lives, of the fae of Atlantis, of Hellebore... Of Aconite and the witches and my great plans of forcing the whole of Atlantis to remember magic.

And I thought of Timothy, the one who had erased many memories.